Character Building, Theory-Crafting, Vessel-Talent System

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I wanted to go a bit further on what I said in the 5.8 feedback topic concerning skill trees. Basically In their current form, they add very little in the way of character building. The only choice is the advanced class. Other than you you just fill in the points as you get them. There are no real choices. The skill trees are linear. If I am required to spend 5 points in a stat to get to the next one, I didn't make a choice. I played connect the dots. If I am given 30 talents points to fill into a tree that has less than 30 useful places to spend the talents, I didn't make a choice. I want lots of choices and I want them to matter. If I spend a point to get one new skill or passive, I want it to be at the cost of choosing a different one. Choices need to be exponential and exclusive to matter. I really like where the whole talent system within vessels can go and here is how I would expand on it.

Before we start, please ignore all values or numbers. Don't worry about something seeming OP or not. Values can be adjusted to what ever they need to be. Focus more on the idea.

The first thing I would do is cut passive combat training at the account level. Leave exploration / crafting. Move combat training to the vessel level like you did for class / race.

Give each vessel ~300 talent points to spend. ~10 per level. Some classes or races can have more or less total points as a way to balance them.

Take almost every stat in the game and let us train it with these points, how ever we want. Use diminishing returns. If I want to put 300 points into Crit Hit Damage let me, but I will be severely gimping myself in other stats. Do not require me to spend X talent points in one skill before I am allowed to train in the next skill. Do not limit the # of talents points I can spend in one place. That is linear and without choice.

Here is an example with just a few of the in-game stats. Pretend they are all here.

Spoiler

Imagine something like this but with all or most of the stats and you can spend your points in them as you see fit, how ever you want. The first few points you spend give better returns and the more points you spend the worse it gets, but if you see fit to spike one or two stats go nuts. Want to take a balanced approach? Go ahead. Do it this way on each individual vessel and every one will be different.

The next things I would do is expand on each advanced class. Currently they do serve the purpose of not all champions are the same but there is only one degree of separation. All Champion Pit-Fighters are the same. I would go even further. Here is an example for Druid.

Spoiler

Your first choice is your advanced class. That then branches off into more choices only available to each advanced class. Here is an example for Earthkeeper, the healing focused druid.

Spoiler

Remember, I just made up all of these numbers and abilities. They don't matter. What does is the level of character customization that this could mean. Right now I can be a Druid - Earthkeeper. I want to be a Druid - Earthkeeper that hard spammed Crit Healing amount and Slashing resist, that can heal outside my group, that focuses on druid orbs, that wants to dance at the cusp of essence burning, who can return to life sometimes when he dies.

What do you guys think? Is this too much customization or too cluttered? What would you like to see the character building process be?

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No judgement here yet on your proposed system changes but I am curious as to whether your assessment of the current system includes that discipline powers and passives will also require talent point investment. In the not so distant future we will have to choose between discipline powers and the base class talents.

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No judgement here yet on your proposed system changes but I am curious as to whether your assessment of the current system includes that discipline powers and passives will also require talent point investment. In the not so distant future we will have to choose between discipline powers and the base class talents.

I know that is coming and am looking forward to what that might bring to character building, and that might touch on the point I made that there is really only one choice atm in choosing your advanced class. Even now with the Disc System it is not that robust. They are mostly small passive attack or defensive gains with 1 or 2 useful abilities that are just different versions of other abilities. There really are not many Disc ATM that change the way you play your character. Some let you go hybrid or play super tanky, etc. There are some for sure, I would just like to see it more so.

Mostly I just don't like the early WoW style talent tree system that we have now. Putting 5 points to put into a choice of crit chance or AP for a marginal increase to that stat is not a choice and is boring. Getting to choose what ever I want and how ever I want is much better. IMO.

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Great Post. I was like a day away from making a somewhat similar post about changing up the "tree" method of the talent progression. I love the talent system and what it can bring to the table, but like you said, there really isnt any choice when it comes to what your going for down the line, and in my opinion it feels really stupid to have to waste 1 point in a 5 stamina gain just cause i want 2 of the abilities it branches off too. Thats a wasted point that i have no interest in that i could have put into damage/crit/etc but was forced to take cause i wanted another minor rune and a certain skill that comes after it. I also hate the arbitrary "Must spend this many points" crap its just plain annoying and when leveling get slower and actually requires effort its gonna suck alot more to realize your next 2 or 3 levels is just gonna be dumping points into random crap cause you cant progress past that first gated node without spending 15 total talent points. Just get rid of it if they wanna keep the tree system, the players are already gated by the need to spend points in a specific order to be able to progress through, why cant they just let someone speed to the promotion if thats what they wanna do with the build

I like your idea of a generalized stat pool and giving players a limited number of points to dump as much as they want in the stats they want and not have to waste time getting stats they dont want the only part i dont agree with is it seems you put attributes into that category too and personally i dont think they should be, considering attributes bleed down into many other stats they can just leave attribute leveling as is. If i wanna put all my points into crit chance and choose not to get any extra damage/health etc, why shouldnt i be able to? Am i playing a harvester that wants to dump all of my stat points into stamina so i can harvest for longer periods of time but sacrifice extra health/survivability/etc, why shouldnt i be able to? The game already has caps for all stats, so if someone wants to burn 250 of their 300 points in crit chance to get their crit chance to the stat cap, why shouldnt they be able to? They literally sacrifice damage/health/regen/armor/armor pen/etc to get to that point, so why cant that choice be theirs to make. If they end up not liking it they can just do something different when they get a new vessel or just remake theirs if its a basic vessel.

I then think talents should be split into 3 groups, The stat point group that you mentioned (with the crit/damage/support/etc), the skill point group (the actual nodes that unlock abilities and rune slots), and the promotion point group (the stuff found in promotions and locked behind choosing one of 3 choice). Using your proposed system for the stat point group (play with numbers to balance it out).

For skill points, have the players unlock a certain number of skill points at each level and allow them to choose which skills to buy. This will allow them to pick and choose what they want without being limited to having to get some random skill just to get to the one they actually want, they can just grab the skill they want. It would also allow them to go straight into runes from the beginning without having to level up multiple times, if thats what they want to do and know that their build will be heavily involving runes. Also, since classes no longer have default kits, hopefully the devs would consider adding more skills to each of the classes, that way there is truly a bit of variance in most characters of the same class. If knights have 20 (arbitrary number) skills to choose from instead of the like 8 they have now and can get up to 10 (arbitrary number) skill points to choose which skills they want then we will probably see more knights with slightly different set ups.

Then have the promotion point group which you start getting points for at like level 20 or something, and have different nodes located in side them that also have to be chosen between (like your suggestion said) but not limiting it to a specific order. For example, using your above example as reference; Hit level 20 get first promotion point and choose which of the 3 promotions you want and get the stat or passive or w/e you get from the first node of the promotion, then at 21 be able to choose between getting a skill upgrade/ult upgrade/passive and have a choice between a few different in each (pretty much your suggestion but without being limited to the order you put it in, meaning if they wanted at 21 to get the "single target heal for death tray" they could choose to do that OR get one of the passives if they wanted). Inside each promotion have 1 set of ~3 passive choices (chose one and it locks out the other 2) have 1 set of ~3 ult upgrades/changes (same as before, pick only 1) and then have like 3 or 4 sets of 3 ability upgrades (either 3 different upgrades for the same skill [ie, A: Add Bleed to Cheap Shot, B: Gain barrier when using cheap shot, or C: Cheap shot drains 35 stamina from enemy on hit] OR 3 upgrades for different skills [ie, A: Leap Grants 1 Points of Dominance Per Leap, B: Rend Reduced Bleed Armor, or C: Whirling Pain now removes roots and slows] and only being able to grab one upgrade from each set.

This will allow players alot more freedom in taking what they want and not having to waste points. The only things that would need to have any pre-requisite is skill upgrades requiring you to actually have the skill your upgrading.

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I love the talent system and what it can bring to the table, but like you said, there really isnt any choice when it comes to what your going for down the line, and in my opinion it feels really stupid to have to waste 1 point in a 5 stamina gain just cause i want 2 of the abilities it branches off too. Thats a wasted point that i have no interest in that i could have put into damage/crit/etc but was forced to take cause i wanted another minor rune and a certain skill that comes after it.

^This is hands down the biggest issue with the talent (and passive) tree.

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also the future 'having to invest talents for discs' is going to be painful for classes like the druid, where you gameplay/group role is gated by level progression with about the only way of impacfully scaling it via 'forced healing discs' too. [alongside a small power selection too]

also the removal of class specific (or all?) weapon discs choices as well...

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We haven't heard anything about advantage / disadvantage system in a very logn time. I think this system has been replaced by the leveling attributes, while you level up you put your points in some attributes and that's it.

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We haven't heard anything about advantage / disadvantage system in a very logn time. I think this system has been replaced by the leveling attributes, while you level up you put your points in some attributes and that's it.

which again in the example of say healers is both 'zero choice' and 'low impact' = get +spirit!

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also the future 'having to invest talents for discs' is going to be painful for classes like the druid, where you gameplay/group role is gated by level progression with about the only way of impacfully scaling it via 'forced healing discs' too.

Yeah I agree it is rough on Druid. I wonder what my initial thoughts of the talent system would have been if I didn't choose a DPS druid and Heal Druid as my first 2 classes after such a long break. Each time it was just a bunch of, "I don't want these stats or talents but I have to take them to progress. Then after the build is finished Having a few extra left over points to spend in useless healing talents for the DPS Druid or DPS talents for the healing Druid